1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an exposure apparatus, which forms an exposure pattern by intermittently applying exposure light to an object to be exposed while conveying the object to be exposed in one direction, and in particular, relates to the exposure apparatus, which forms minute exposure patterns on an entire surface of the object to be exposed at high resolution and at high density, and a photomask used therein.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional exposure apparatus is the exposure apparatus, which performs exposure of a mask pattern of the photo mask on a predetermined position by intermittently applying the exposure light to the object to be exposed conveyed at a constant speed through the photomask, and a position upstream of an exposure position by the photo mask in a conveying direction of the object to be exposed is captured by imaging device, takes an alignment between the object to be exposed and the photomask based on an imaged image and controls applying timing of the exposure light (for example, refer to Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2008-76709).
However, such conventional exposure apparatus directly transfers an image of the mask pattern formed on the photomask by the exposure light, which perpendicularly passes through the photomask, on the object to be exposed, so that, due to presence of collimation half angle of light applied to the photomask, an image of the pattern on the object to be exposed is blurred and resolution is deteriorated, and there is a possibility that the minute pattern may not be formed by exposure.
Although it is possible to deal with such a problem by providing a microlens corresponding to the mask pattern on a side of the object to be exposed of the photomask and projecting a reduced mask pattern on the object to be exposed, in this case, there is a problem that it is not possible to form the exposure pattern on a portion between the lenses adjacently arranged in a direction substantially orthogonal to the conveying direction of the object to be exposed and it is not possible to form the minute exposure patterns on the entire surface of the object to be exposed at high density.